BRUSSELS, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - Italian police have broken a ring of counterfeiters making fake euro coins of the highest quality, the European Commission said Tuesday.

With support from the European anti-fraud office, Italian police arrested six people in connection with the case, preventing 'thousands' of counterfeited coins from going into circulation.

The commission said that from a technical point of view the counterfeited coins discovered were considered 'the most sophisticated type of counterfeit euro coins detected in circulation until now.'